In a typical ink-jet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent such as a dye, and a large amount of solvent to prevent clogging of the nozzle. The solvent or carrier fluid, typically is made up of water, an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol or a polyhydric alcohol.
The recording medium typically comprises a substrate or a support material having on at least one surface an ink receiving or image forming layer. The media include those intended for reflection viewing which usually have an opaque support and those intended for viewing by transmitted light which usually have a transparent support.
While a wide variety of different types of image recording media have been previously described there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products which have severely limited their commercial usefulness. The requirements for an image recording medium are very demanding. For example the recording medium must be capable of absorbing or receiving large amounts of ink applied to the image forming surface as rapidly as possible in order to produce recorded images having high optical density and good colour gaumet.